India’s Cultural Roots

Indian Culture — A Tree with Many Roots

• Indian culture, by any estimate, is several millenniums old.
• Like any ancient tree, it has many roots and many branches:
  • The roots nurture a common trunk.
  • From the trunk emerge many branches — different manifestations of Indian culture, yet united by that common trunk.
• Some of these branches are about art, literature, science, medicine, religion, the art of governance and martial arts.
• There are also ‘schools of thought’ — groups of thinkers or spiritual seekers who share similar ideas about human life, the world, and so on.
• Many archaeologists and scholars have pointed out that some of India’s cultural roots go all the way back to the Indus or Harappan or Sindhu-Sarasvatī civilisation.
• Later on, over time, hundreds of schools of thought emerged in India.
• By understanding these schools and their roots, we can understand ‘India, that is Bharat’ better.

The Vedas and Vedic Culture

a. What are the Vedas?

• The word “Veda” comes from the Sanskrit vid, which means ‘knowledge’ — hence vidyā, for instance.
• There are four Vedas.
• They are the most ancient texts of India, and indeed among the most ancient in the world.
• The Vedas consist of thousands of hymns — prayers in the form of poems and songs.
• These hymns were recited orally, not written.
• They were composed in the Sapta Sindhava region.
• It is difficult to say exactly when the Ṛig Veda, the most ancient of the four, was composed. Experts have proposed dates ranging from the 5th to the 2nd millennium BCE.
• So for anything between 100 and 200 generations, these texts were committed to memory through rigorous training and passed on orally with hardly any alterations.

• The Vedic hymns were composed by:
  • rishis — male seers or sages
  • rishikas — female seers
• They were composed in an early form of the Sanskrit language.
• They were addressed in poetical form to many deities (gods or goddesses), such as Indra, Agni, Varuṇa, Mitra, Sarasvatī, Uṣhas, and many more.
• Together with the seers, these deities sustained ṛitam — truth and order in human life and in the cosmos.
• The early rishis and rishikas saw those gods and goddesses as one, not separate beings.

• In this worldview, some values were especially important, beginning with ‘Truth’, which was often another name for God.
• The last mantras (verses) of the Ṛig Veda also call for unity among people.

b. Vedic society

• Early Vedic society was organised in different janas or ‘clans’ — that is, larger groups of people.
• The Ṛig Veda alone lists over 30 such janas, for instance the Bharatas, the Purus, the Kurus, the Yadus and the Turvaśhas.
• Each clan was associated with a particular region of the northwest part of the Subcontinent.
• Not much is known of how these janas governed their society. The Vedas give only a few clues, through words like:
  • rājā — a king or ruler
  • sabhā and samiti — both refer to a collective gathering or assembly
• Many professions are mentioned in the Vedic texts:
  • agriculturist, weaver, potter, builder, carpenter
  • healer, dancer, barber, priest, and so on

c. Vedic schools of thought

• Vedic culture also developed many rituals (yajña, often read as ‘yagya’) directed towards various deities for individual or collective benefit and wellbeing.
• Daily rituals were generally in the form of prayers and offerings to Agni, the deity associated with fire.
• But those rituals became more and more complex in the course of time.
• A group of texts known as the Upaniṣhads built upon Vedic concepts and introduced new ones:
  • rebirth — taking birth again and again
  • karma — our actions or their results
• According to one school of thought, generally known as ‘Vedanta’, everything — human life, nature and the universe — is one divine essence called brahman, or sometimes just tat (‘that’).
• Note carefully: brahman is not to be confused with the god Brahmā.

• The Upaniṣhads also introduced the concept of ātman or Self — the divine essence that resides in every being but is ultimately one with brahman.
• It follows that everything in this world is connected and interdependent.
• This explains a common prayer that begins with sarve bhavantu sukhinah, or “May all creatures be happy”, and goes on to wish them all to be free from disease and sorrow.
• Early in the 1st millennium BCE, several more schools of thought grew out of the Vedas.
  • One of them was Yoga, which developed methods intended to achieve the realisation of brahman in one’s consciousness.
• Together, these schools of thought became the foundations for what we call ‘Hinduism’ today.

Stories from the Upaniṣhads

• Many stories from the Upaniṣhads tell us the importance of asking questions — whether these questions come from men, women or children.

Important Questions — Part 1

Buddhism

• Other schools of thought also emerged which did not accept the authority of the Vedas and developed their own systems.
• One of them is Buddhism.
• About two-and-a-half millenniums ago, a young prince named Siddhārtha Gautama was born in Lumbini (today in Nepal).
• Depending on the sources they use, scholars have come to widely different conclusions about the precise year of his birth.
  • The textbook chose 560 BCE as an approximate year in an earlier chapter.
  • In any case, it makes no difference to the story.

• As the story goes, Siddhārtha Gautama grew up living a protected life in the palace.
• One day, at the age of 29, he asked to be driven through the city in a chariot. For the first time in his life he came across:
  • an old man
  • a sick man
  • a dead body
  • an ascetic, who appeared to be happy and at peace
• Following this experience, Siddhārtha decided to give up his palace life, leaving behind his wife and son.
• Travelling on foot as an ascetic, meeting other ascetics and scholars, he searched for the root cause of suffering in human life.
• After meditating for many days under a pipal tree at Bodh Gaya (today in Bihar), he attained enlightenment.
• He realised that two things are the source of human suffering:
  • avidyā — ignorance
  • attachment
• He then conceived a method to remove these two causes.
• Siddhārtha became known as the ‘Buddha’, which means the ‘enlightened’ or ‘awakened’ one.

• The Buddha started teaching what he had realised, including the idea of ahimsa.
  • It is generally translated as ‘non-violence’.
  • But it originally means ‘non-hurting’ or ‘non-injuring’.
• He also insisted on a sincere inner discipline.

• The Buddha founded the Sangha, a community of:
  • bhikṣhus or monks
  • and, later, bhikṣhuṇīs or nuns
• They dedicated themselves to practising and spreading his teachings.
• His influence on India, and indeed the whole of Asia, was enormous — and it is still perceptible today.

Jainism

• Jainism is another important school of thought that became widespread at the same time, although its roots are said to be much more ancient.
• Just like Siddhārtha Gautama, Prince Vardhamāna was born into a royal family in the early 6th century BCE.
• His birthplace was near the city of Vaiśhālī, in modern-day Bihar.
• At the age of 30, he decided to leave his home and go in search of spiritual knowledge.
• He practised an ascetic discipline and, after 12 years, achieved ‘infinite knowledge’ or supreme wisdom.
• He became known as ‘Mahāvīra’, or ‘great hero’, and started preaching what he had realised.

• Jain teachings include three central ideas: ahimsa, anekāntavāda and aparigraha.
• These ideas are shared to a large extent with Buddhism and the Vedantic school of thought, and are central to Indian culture.

• Jainism also insists on the interconnectedness and interdependence of all creatures — from humans to invisible organisms — as they support each other and cannot live without one another.
• Scientists studying nature, flora and fauna have again and again confirmed this deep truth.

Spreading the Teachings

• In both Buddhism and Jainism, monks — and sometimes nuns too — began travelling across the land to spread their respective teachings far and wide.
• Some of them created new monasteries in faraway places.
• Others led ascetic lives in caves cut in the rock.
• Archaeological findings have revealed many traces of those monasteries — sometimes even the names of the monks who lived in the rock-cut caves and slept on stone beds.

Two Famous Stories

Important Questions — Part 2

Other Schools of Thought, One Common Trunk

• There were yet other schools of thought at the time.
• One of them was known as the ‘Chārvāka’ school, sometimes also called ‘Lokāyata’.
  • It believed that this material world is the only thing that exists.
  • Therefore, according to it, there can be no life after death.
• This school does not seem to have gained much popularity and it disappeared with time.
• It is mentioned to show that there was a wide diversity of intellectual or spiritual belief systems — and that people were free to choose what suited them.
• Although the Vedic, Buddhist and Jain schools had important differences, they also shared some common concepts.
• This shared ground is the ‘trunk’ of the tree the chapter began with.

Folk and Tribal Roots

• The cultural roots seen so far are well documented in many texts.
• India has also had rich ‘oral traditions’ — teachings or practices transmitted through everyday practice, without written texts.
  • The Vedas themselves are an example of this.
• Among these oral traditions are:
  • folk traditions — transmitted by common people
  • tribal traditions — transmitted by tribes

What is a tribe?

• There are many definitions for this social entity.
• Today, anthropologists usually consider a tribe to be a group of families or clans:
  • sharing a tradition of common descent, a culture and a language
  • living as a close-knit community under a chief
  • holding no private property
• Interestingly, ancient India did not have a word for ‘tribe’.
  • Tribes were just different janas that lived in a specific environment, such as forests or mountains.
• The Constitution of India uses the terms ‘tribes’ and ‘tribal communities’ in English, and janjāti in Hindi.

• In the 19th century, anthropologists studying tribes often described them as ‘primitive’ or ‘inferior’ to civilised people.
• With deeper studies of tribal communities and their rich and complex cultures, such biased judgments have been mostly abandoned.

The Two-Way Exchange

• There has been a constant interaction between folk and tribal traditions and the leading schools of thought.
• Deities, concepts, legends and rituals have been freely exchanged in both directions.
• Examples of tribal ideas entering the wider tradition:
  • According to tradition, Jagannath, worshipped at Puri (Odisha), was originally a tribal deity.
  • This is also the case with various forms of the mother-goddess worshipped across India.
• Examples of the wider tradition entering tribal life:
  • Some tribes adopted Hindu deities long ago.
  • They possess their own versions of the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa — well documented from India’s northeastern States all the way to Tamil Nadu.
• Why have such interactions taken place for so long and so naturally?
  • Because folk, tribal and Hindu belief systems have many similar concepts.
  • In all three, elements of nature — mountains, rivers, trees, plants, animals, and some stones too — are regarded as sacred, because there is consciousness behind all of them.
• Indeed, tribes generally worship many deities associated with those natural elements.
  • For the Toda tribals of the Nilgiris of Tamil Nadu, over thirty peaks of that mountain range are residences of a god or a goddess.
  • Those peaks are so sacred that the Todas avoid pointing to them with a finger.
• But despite this multiplicity of deities, as with Hinduism, many tribal groups have a concept of a higher divinity or supreme being.

• Clearly, the result of this long interaction has been mutual enrichment.
• In this manner, folk and tribal beliefs and practices also count among India’s cultural roots.

Before we move on …

Important Questions — Part 3